When the birds sing

I always feel like somebody's watching me...

I don't usually mind followers (the joys of Web 2.0), since if I haven't insulted or bored you to death, I'm glad to have you around. But when I was checking my Tumblr dashboard (which I usually don't since the way they implement following means dumping everything in my stream, and if you've got a Tumblr, I've probably followed your RSS, so it pops up in Reader anyway), I saw there was a follower section.

Now, Oxfam doesn't realize there's a reason I post so many disaster articles.

Tony? Take it away...

"I don't believe in 'supernatural' magic," he says. "I believe in 'supernormal' magic, meaning that when certain frequencies are sent out into the ether they affect the human subconscious in much the same way that certain circus tunes make elephants march." LaVey then runs through a medley of "rain songs" - "Singin' in the Rain," "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella," a dozen more.

"Putting this leitmotif together is magical because I'm the only one who knows it. It sets up a Jungian gestalt. It's called magical superimposition. It's like five characters waiting for a play: I provide the play." LaVey then heightens and sharpens secret magical tonal patterns that he has discovered through years of trial and error. "You get a lot of rain songs together, and imagine all the creative energy, amalgamated creative energy, that went into those songs. Combine that with the emotional energy I produce in playing it. If the audience is right, like the other night in the bar, I can do something very magical because of ego-circuitry."

Proof that magic works? LaVey knew Hatfield the Rainmaker! He saw it work! What is magic today will be science tomorrow, he says, when the effect of biochemical energy is finally understood. He sees proof of magic everywhere. Not just in the return to romantic tunes and nostalgic fashion, but in parking spaces conjured up on the street and good tables appearing suddenly at restaurants, not to mention the San Diego McDonald's massacre and the Mexican earthquake that resulted accidentally after LaVey vented some anger on the keys. He is like a faith healer who has seen too many miracles to doubt. "It's truly frightening," he says.

And now, something different:

Happy Birthday to me

Twelve years late, but I support the effort

I'm trying to coin the expression "triple-yew", meaning the WWW at the start of web addresses, currently we are reduced to saying "double-yew double-yew double-yew" which seems ridiculously long. 
Clifford Marcus, Oxford, UK

via BBC, on the advent of the millionth word.

Listen,

the reason I haven't been down there in a decade isn't because it's not interesting, it's strictly a money issue. I suppose if someone's taken over the bungalows for Mr. Jones, that would be okay, but all the Painted Ladies don't do anything for me. Could you drop the next one by Page Bacon, or the comic book shop down by Wal-Mart, so I can hear if they're still there?

Humaneteen, HSUS

Who handles your briefings Mr. Gates?

Foes warned off 'testing' Obama

Did you not notice Kim Jong Il "disappearing" from the scene?

Have you noticed Mr. Ahmadinejad is suffering from "exhaustion"?

Knock off the primate shit.

DCPI 087-06-2067, why must you make me sad?

So, I've been wanting one of these ever since July, when it was announced.  

I've kept a picture of it on my desktop, followed news about it on Toy News International , watched the various fora I know Target employees visit, bugged family to take me along if they're going out to Target, and tried to see if I could get a hit on the DCPI number on their website.

I was saddened to hear the price increase to $63 from $50, but I changed the amount of money I kept on hand in my wallet to compensate (still,  with 7 figures{@$7~8 ea.}, the HISS tank {$16}, the trouble bubble {~$8}= free MOBAT.). 

So, today, after classes I asked Pop to take me out to Target, to see if they had one, or failing that, some of the $5 single card figures whose sale was over today. Empty pegs, no battle pack in the back room. Drowned my sorrows with a Solomon Grundy build-a-figure.

On the way back home, Pop asked what I was looking for, and I described the set. Then I made the mistake of mentioning what it cost. "Fifty dollars!" (I didn't correct him.)"What the Hell good does it do you? You'll just have something no-one else has." (It bears mentioning on that last point, Pop has never seen my library fully assembled, just random shelves.) Never mind having what someone else doesn't is why I never sold any of my pieces, or indeed the underlying principle of toy collecting. I know the point of it is Pop doesn't get what these things mean to me.

I find it difficult to express how my mind works, and a subset, how my memory works. I've stopped going to funerals, for example, because after my Grandmother's funeral, every time  I saw her face, I saw that waxy thing in the coffin. Every picture, every thought, that waxy thing that was no longer her was there. When I look at the Millennium Falcon she bought me at a garage sale, I can see her, I can remember that moment clearly.  I can only picture her from the chain of association that starts with that yellowing toy.

Most of my childhood is just muscular tension and neurosis now, but GI Joe figures I can remember. Every one of the original 13, I got from Black's Hardware in Grandview. Black's Hardware downtown, coincidentally, was the only RPG store in town for most of my youth. Every week, Pop would need something, and I'd beg to go along with him (I had the same freedom of movement at eight I have now). I would get someone new ($1.29!), and sometimes, if I raked the yard, or burnt the weeds, I could get a vehicle. The MOBAT was for christmas, the HAL for my birthday. Hell, in those days, you could find decent toys almost anywhere. I got my ASP from a Kroger store.

The last two years haven't been very good to me (which is why I've been trying to replay 1993 and 1987. Apologies to everyone who was flooded, or bankrupted, in that order. Ellis mentioned how Jenny Sparks dealt with depression, but it doesn't do anything for me.), but I have had the 25th line. I should probably dig up my retail therapy notes (short version, it works for a time, with no permanent benefit. When your problem is having no money, double trouble.), but it worked. I'm wrung out to the point where tiny plastic men are what's getting me out of bed in the afternoon.

So, what good does it do me?

Just sayin'

Beneath the freeway at the cloverleaf junction
The symbol of good luck eminates darkness
The shadow will grow to cover California
Somewhere on the road from San Bernadino
Its future is stirring the past from that pass

... From San Bernadino these angels are racing this night to your city
The host of angels, Los Angeles

Well Played.

You've earned a point. 

I expect thanks

for my contribution to Grand Slam.

Attention Russia

Please keep some gates closed.
I know it's not all amber and mammoths over there, but please.
By the time the leaks hit here, all I'm getting is strings of teeth.
Your Sedna is still up, our Arwassa is down right now, please change your routers.